30-city world tour delivers best-practice insights and original research for improving visibility and control of enterprise performance -- Cognos is teaming with industry thought leaders, including the Cognos Innovation Center advisors, to present best practices for implementing and executing world-class business strategies. Cognos' Innovation Center advisors represent leading industry experts in financial and performance management. Cognos Finance Forums will offer methodologies for customers in this increasingly complex business environment to significantly improve visibility and control with enterprise planning, financial reporting, and business intelligence solutions. Beginning April 19 in Boston at the first of the Cognos Finance Forum 2006 series, senior Cognos executives and their thought leader guests will help attendees identify the performance management technology gap and how to close it by moving their financial and operational processes to world-class status. They will also outline the "new rules" established by high performance companies who have already embraced a vision that maximizes visibility, quickens response, pulls consistent data from financial and operational systems, and enables the ability to make quick adjustments for improved business performance. Attendees will hear the following market insights from Cognos' thought leader partners: Cognos Innovation Center advisor, Dr. David P. Norton is co-founder and President of Palladium Group Inc. and co-creator of the Balanced Scorecard. He will discuss how to close the gap between strategy and execution and reveal findings from recent research-based case studies with leading organizations. Richard T. Roth, Chief Research Officer, The Hackett Group and Cognos Innovation Center advisor will discuss the findings from 2006 benchmarking research as well as a framework and metrics for identifying World-Class Enterprise Performance Management including planning, budgeting and forecasting. Jeremy Hope, Research Director, Beyond Budgeting Roundtable and Cognos Innovation Center advisor will share insights from his newly released book, 'Reinventing the CFO', which details case studies of forward-looking finance professionals who are transforming their roles to respond to the challenges of a tough regulatory environment and providing strategic support and leadership to boost performance. Mary Driscoll, President and Editorial Director of CFO Research Services will share insights from recent studies and reports that illustrate the concerns and barriers facing senior finance executives now striving for excellence in performance management and strategy execution. Her talk will cover what the pioneering companies are doing, why they are now willing to invest in performance management process improvement, and what they gain from new generation CPM processes and technology. IBM executives will discuss the findings of the IBM 2005 Global CFO Study which provides a comprehensive assessment of the agenda of CFOs today as they act proactively on business insight and transition the finance function from a stewardship of information to one that delivers predictive business insight to decision makers across the enterprise. Representatives from Palladium, OpenPages, Deloitte & Touche LLP and The Hackett Group will share their insights on proven best-practices through hosted breakout sessions on financial management and control and strategic applications of scorecarding, metrics management, reporting and analytics. Cognos Performance Management solutions are helping 86 of the Fortune 100 companies avoid financial surprises by improving visibility into financial and operational performance and providing control over resource allocation. "This series of gatherings led by Cognos' Innovation Center advisors and other industry thought leaders, will provide organizations with an opportunity to glean best-practices and hear compelling stories of sustainable innovation from some of the most influential thinkers in business today," said Renee Lorton, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Cognos Performance Management. "Organizations will be armed with key intelligence to address their performance challenges and advance their journeys towards world-class performance management decision-making." Key partners and sponsors of Cognos Finance Forums 2006 include: Palladium and the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, IBM Business Consulting Services, Deloitte & Touche LLP, The Hackett Group, OpenPages, and CFO Research Services. Cognos Finance Forum 2006 spans North America and Europe with additional venues in Latin America and Asia Pacific. For a full list of event venues, agendas, dates and registration information, visit: its Web site.